Cover preview: DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE No.537

It's Doctor Who week again! Yes, this Thursday, 4th April, sees the publication of the official Doctor Who Magazine No.537 and here's a preview of the cover! 

As well as features, interviews, news, reviews, and the latest 13th Doctor comic strip there's also another excursion into The Daft Dimension from me, with those Daft Daleks making their return!

Don't miss Doctor Who Magazine No.537, 84 pages, £5.99, published by Panini UK and available from WH Smith, supermarkets, comic shops, and newsagents! 

This week in 1971: COUNTDOWN No.38

Here are a few pages from the issue of Countdown that kids were reading this week in 1971. There's nothing significant about this issue, but the truth is every issue of Countdown was special because the artistic quality was so high so I thought you'd like to see an issue chosen at random.

As mentioned in previous posts a while ago, Countdown was published by Polystyle Publications and edited by Dennis Hooper, who had been the original art editor on Countdown's rival, TV Century 21. By 1971, TV21 had abandoned the license to publish strips based on Gerry Anderson TV shows so Countdown nipped in and took over. In essence, Countdown was a new version of TV21 in all but name. It also carried features on space exploration, as had TV21. 

Countdown's initial main selling points had been UFO and Doctor Who. Both still featured in this issue (No.38) but by this time the regular cover stars were The Persuaders, the new high profile ITC show starring Roger Moore and Tony Curtis. The art was by Harry Lindfield and continued inside...

Doctor Who was involved in an adventure set in the American Civil War, with artwork by Frank Langford...

The Doctor also featured in an advert for Sugar Smacks cereal, which in 1971 had a free Dr.Who badge in every pack. What better incentive to eat more sugary food and rot your teeth?

Gerry Anderson's TV series were represented with the first part of a new UFO serial running to six pages. Art by Gerry Haylock. Reprints of Stingray and Fireball XL5 also featured in the issue, which had previously appeared only six years earlier in TV21.

Countdown was also the title of the ongoing strip saga of the same name illustrated by John Burns. An original strip, but using spacecraft designs from 2001: A Space Odyssey. This serial definitely deserves to be collected in a reprint edition but the rights surrounding the 2001 designs seem to be a setback. 

One of the regular articles in the comic at this time were photographs taken from Apollo 15, the ninth manned space mission. I was 12 years old at the time and anything regarding space exploration was exciting as far as I was concerned. An actual close up photo of the Moon, on the back of a comic! I'm afraid that rival comics such as Hornet or Tiger couldn't top that with relatively mundane photos of footballers! 

Countdown was a great comic, although perhaps most kids preferred its competitor, Look-In, because a few months later Countdown underwent a big revamp to become TV Action with a focus on more grounded shows such as Hawaii Five-O and The Protectors. It still retained a high quality of art though, and issues are worth seeking out. 

39 years of DWM

Doctor Who Magazine notches up 39 years of publication this week. An impressive achievement for any mag these days. It started out as Doctor Who Weekly back in 1979 of course, and I wrote a blog post about that first issue a few years ago, which you can read here:

https://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2009/10/30-year-flashback-doctor-who-weekly-no1.html

That first issue had 36 pages with only four in colour. These days it's an 84 page full colour mag published every four weeks. The current issue is No.530. Here's the cover to look out for...

...and issue 531 will be out next week. I'll post a cover preview on this blog as soon as it's revealed!

I've always thought Doctor Who Magazine was a great mag, even before I started contributing to it four years ago. To find out more about the magazine, visit their website today and take advantage of the subscription offer to save money:
https://doctorwhomagazine.com

...and don't miss the next episode of the new season of Doctor Who this Sunday at 6.55pm on BBC One.

New Doctor Who special out now

Jodie Whittaker IS The Doctor. Deal with it! And many of us are open-minded enough to accept that a shape-shifting alien can shift another few chromosomes to turn into a woman. The long-awaited new series of Doctor Who starts on BBC One this Sunday at 6.45pm and will no doubt attract a lot of new viewers, as well as seasoned fans.

Panini UK have just published the ideal magazine for new viewers who want to find out more about the Doctor's history. The Story of Doctor Who is a 116 page bookazine for £9.99 that should be available now from branches of WH Smith (sadly, not in mine yet) and all good newsagents. There's the cover above. Look out for it!

BBC unveils the new Doctor Who logo

Here's the brand new Doctor Who logo that will appear on the new series when it begins in the Autumn with Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor. Expect to see it all across the range of new merchandise too, and on the cover of Doctor Who Magazine later this year.

Dr.What and his Time Clock (1964)

First episode. 30th May 1964

Considered to be the first spoof of Doctor Who in comics, Dr.What and his Time Clock appeared in Odhams' Boys' World Vol.2 No.22 (30th May 1964) to Vol.2 No.40 (3rd October 1964).

The artwork was by Artie Jackson, who would also contribute to Odhams' Wham! and Smash!, specifically on Danger Mouse for the latter comic. (No relation to the TV character that came much later.)

6th June 1964

13th June 1964

20th June 1964

The character of Dr.What was clearly modelled on William Hartnell's Doctor Who, although his method of time travel was completely different. Dr.What had invented a "Time Clock" that propelled him into the past or the future, in several serial adventures in different time periods.

8th August 1964

There's a rumour that pressure from the BBC forced Odhams to drop the strip, but I'm not convinced by that. The strip ended along with some other strips in the very last issue of Boys' World; a common fate for less popular strips when two comics merged. (Boys' World merged into Eagle the following week.) 

Final episode. 3rd October 1964

Some episodes of Dr.What and his Time Clock were reprinted in an IPC holiday special years later. (I think it may have been in the first Whizzer and Chips Holiday Special but I'm not sure. I sold my copy long ago.)

Anyway, with the first Doctor revised for the recent Doctor Who Christmas Day episode I thought it was an appropriate time to show this strip. I hope you enjoyed these examples!

It's Doctor Who Day!

As it's officially Doctor Who Day (54 years since the first episode in 1963), here's one of my Daft Dimension strips that appeared in Doctor Who Magazine last year.

New Who

©BBC

No doubt you'll have seen this image already on social media, and it'll be in all the papers later today, but I thought I'd post it for the few of you who may not have seen it. It's the first official photograph of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor! A new look, and an outfit that's completely different to what most of us were expecting. There's something clown-like about it, which harkens back to Patrick Troughton's era, but it also embraces modern sensibilities with its rainbow motif. I think any travels to the Victorian era might raise a few eyebrows with those bare ankles though. 

Jodie Whittaker makes her debut in Doctor Who on Christmas Day, and her full series starts next Autumn. By which time, hopefully all the obvious "Mork" jokes will have subsided. 

Coincidentally, today I'm working on the Daft Dimension strip for the Christmas issue of Doctor Who Magazine. No, the 13th Doctor will not feature in it. Although I was the first to put her in a strip (see here) her next comics appearance won't be until the new series begins in 2018.

A new series for the First Doctor

Ever since David Bradley was cast as William Hartnell in the drama An Adventure In Space and Time, fans of a certain age, and of classic Doctor Who, have been wishing for David Bradley to play the part of the first Doctor. As we know, he's been cast in the part for the upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special alongside Peter Capaldi's 12th Doctor but fans hoped for a full series... and it's about to come true! 

Big Finish productions are to launch The First Doctor Adventures as a series of audio plays with brand new stories featuring the first Doctor and his companions. The compabnions Susan, Ian, and Barbara will be played by the actors who performed those roles on An Adventure In Space and Time. Admittedly it's on audio CD and not on TV but it's the closest we're going to get as a revival of the first Doctor and I'm sure it'll be very welcomed. 

It starts in December and you can read all about it on the Big Finish site here:
https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/david-bradley-returns-to-the-tardis-in-doctor-who-the-first-doctor-adventures

Doctor Who and the Bookshops

I thought I'd give a plug for Panini's wonderful Doctor Who graphic novels as I rarely mention them here. These weighty large size softbacks reprint the Doctor Who comic strip serials from Doctor Who Magazine into handy complete collections. There's often also behind-the-scenes features on the strips as back-up articles too.

There have been more than 20 books in this line published over the years, and the newest is Doorway to Hell, gathering recent 12th Doctor stories, including his encounter with the original Master! It'll be out in September officially, but the DWM team say you might find some in shops already.

As there are still older stories to be reprinted, you never know what will turn up in this series. The previous book was Emperor of the Daleks, collecting a 7th Doctor story from the 1980s issues of DWM!

I know a few fans have said they'd like to see some of the 3rd Doctor strips from Countdown / TV Action collected into a future volume. There are no plans to do that yet, as far as I know, but Who knows...? 

The idea of books collecting comic serials has been the norm in Europe and Japan for many decades, and it's good that the practice has been employed in the UK for a few years now too. I really think this is one way forward for British comics at the moment. With these Doctor Who books, plus collections from Titan, The Phoenix, 2000AD, and Rebellion's Treasury of British Comics line, and all the new graphic novels published by companies such as Self Made Hero, bookshops are becoming the place to go to discover comics. 

Christmas Special 2017 Trailer – Doctor Who – BBC

This looks like it'll be a brilliant ending for Peter Capaldi's tenure as Doctor Who.

"The Twelfth Doctor comes face to face with his past in his final adventure. Twice Upon A Time coming Christmas 2017."

TV Comic with Target (1978)

TV Comic underwent quite a few changes over its 33 year run. It started out as a comic for very young readers in 1951, aged itself up a bit in the 1960s to compete with Dandy and Beano, changed to a tabloid sized comic (as Mighty TV Comic) for a while, and by 1978 its emphasis was more on adventure strips due to absorbing the failed Target comic. (Target had lasted just 18 weeks and you can read more about that here:
https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/this-week-in-1978-target.html )

Here's a few pages from TV Comic with Target No.1397, dated 22nd September 1978. The cover strip rotated its characters and this week it was the turn of Kojak, drawn by David Lloyd early in his career before he went on to find fame with V for Vendetta. (Today, David is the publisher of digital comic Aces Weekly. http://www.acesweekly.co.uk )

TV Comic had been printed in the slick photogravure format for years, until changing to web offset in 1971. However, by 1978 it had downgraded to cheap newsprint and, as you'll see, a very limited approach to colouring. Charlie's Angels was illustrated by John Canning...

The Doctor Who strip in TV Comic by this time was a reprint from earlier issues. In the case of this story, it originally appeared in 1974 featuring the third Doctor, with art by Gerry Haylock. For this 1978 reprint, John Canning redrew some of the figurework to replace Jon Pertwee's Doctor with Tom Baker's! 

The Kicktail Kid wasn't related to any TV show but was instead publisher Polystyle's attempt at a superhero strip. (Perhaps trying to compete with the numerous Marvel UK weeklies around at the time.) David Lloyd had been the original artist on the strip but this work is by someone else and I don't recognise the style. 

TV Comic with Target also featured several humour strips of course, as the comic always did, mostly based on cartoon characters. One of the longest running in the weekly was Tom and Jerry, drawn by Bill Titcombe, which was on the back page of the comic that week. 

With only 20 pages, TV Comic was relatively expensive at 10p, but it was still popular enough to survive for a few more years (when its print quality would improve again). 

Titan's Three

Who says British comics are dead? Here's a quick glimpse at the covers of three that are published by London-based Titan Comics today. 

Doctor Who: The Third Doctor reaches the fifth and final issue of the entertaining mini-series by Paul Cornell and Christopher Jones. This has been very enjoyable and I hope a second series will be possible.


Tank Girl: Gold No.4 is also a final issue, but a new Tank Girl series starts soon! Story by Alan Martin, art by Brett Parson. Good stuff!

Hook Jaw No.3 by Si Spurrier and Conor Boyle continues the all-new revival of the classic 1970s Action strip. 

For more info on these titles and all of Titan's other range of comics, visit their website:
http://titan-comics.com/comics/

Titan Comics are available from comics speciality stores. 

The Space Museum opens its doors

Here's a new website that'll be a delight for Doctor Who fans. The Space Museum is a resource of Doctor Who merchandise from the past, with images of comic strip covers, sweet cigarette cards, toys, you name it! Some of it is still under construction but the 1960s section has loads of images for you to view. Whether it's a nostalgic trip down memory lane or your first discovery of Dr.Who memorabilia history, you'll enjoy the visit. You can enter the museum here:
http://thespacemuseum.net

VWORP VWORP! returns

Although humbly calling itself as a fanzine, Vworp Vworp! is actually on a par with any professional magazine. Well written and superbly designed, it's dedicated to features on Doctor Who strips past and present. It's only published every now and then, but each issue is eagerly devoured by its readers. (If you didn't already know, "Vworp Vworp!" has been used as the sound effect of the TARDIS in the comic strips for decades.)

The latest edition, volume 3, is available to order now, and you have a choice of three covers. There's a great TV21 inspired cover (above) highlighting the new Daleks story within, where artist Lee Sullivan has completed the last unfinished Daleks strip by Ron Turner. 

There's the regular cover (below) by Martin Geraghty, which is a wraparound...

...and an EC Comics inspired cover by Adrian Salmon...

As you may have noticed, this issue comes with a free gift; a new Daleks audio adventure The Mechanical Planet on CD (or 7" record with the TV21 variant issue) including the vocal talents of David Graham and Sasha Mitchell, adapting a comic strip from an old Dalek Annual.

Set your TARDIS co-ordinates to land on the Vworp Vworp! website to order your copy now!
http://www.vworpvworp.co.uk

Christmas comics: TV COMIC (1977)

In the previous post I showed an issue of TV Comic from 1952. This one is from 1977 and it's significantly different to the one from 25 years earlier. There are obvious changes in the content of course, as the nature of TV Comic was to reflect children's television of the day, but other changes, such as it no longer being a nursery comic, are also evident. 

The biggest change in this period was its format. Although outwardly it looked like an A4 size comic, it actually folded out to a 16 page tabloid-sized A3 comic. This format had been instigated the year before (along with a temporary name change to Mighty TV Comic) and perhaps this was the publisher's way of trying to compete with Thomson's Beezer and Topper. If so, it was an odd, and perhaps misguided, notion. Tabloid comics were very much on their way out by this time and this experiment didn't last.

The cover of this issue isn't particularly Christmassy unfortunately, although the Basil Brush story gets a bit more festive when it continues onto the back page...

Opening the comic to its full A3 size, the first strip inside is Rod Hull and Emu, drawn by Bill Titcombe...

Mighty Moth, by Dick Millington, was never a TV character of course, but he still proved to be a favourite with the readers and ran in TV Comic for many years...

This issue featured various strips, such as Barney Bear, Popeye, Pink Panther, and more. Some new, some reprint from earlier issues. In the centre pages was Star Trek, not exactly using the massive format to its best advantage. By only reprinting two pages from the American Gold Key Star Trek comic every week it would have taken about three months to tell the full story. Art by the brilliant Alberto Giolitti.

The other adventure strip in this issue was Doctor Who, with art by John Canning. It'd be another two years before Marvel UK launched Doctor Who Weekly with a strip more in tune with the TV show...

On the inside back page; Tom and Jerry, one of TV Comic's most popular and long-running strips. Art by Bill Titcombe...

Any thoughts on this issue or Christmas comics in general? Post your opinions below!